AT&T, have you no shame?

Inside the company's customer-enraging plan to limit FaceTime.

Bob Quinn, one of the top AT&T lobbyists ("Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory") in a company famous for lobbyists, must have drawn the short straw at the office staff meeting this week, because he got a truly unenviable job. Quinn's task was to explain to the world how AT&T's plan to keep blocking FaceTime video chats on some data plans but to unblock it on others was a good thing for customers, how AT&T was in "a learning mode," and—most importantly—why the decision was absolutely, completely legal despite what the unwashed peasants in "public advocacy" work would have you believe.

So Quinn walked down the hall to the closet next to the photocopier and pulled out something reserved for just such an occasion: the company's sole suit of adamantine armor, fortified against flame attacks by a special concoction distilled from the rage of 10,000 Internet commenters. (We are, admittedly, hypothesizing a bit at this point.) Bold Sir Quinn donned the suit and sallied forth to his desk, where he sharpened his quill pen and churned out a corporate blog post on "enabling" FaceTime for AT&T users.

In it, Quinn pointed out that AT&T's serfs customers could continue to use FaceTime over WiFi. With iOS 6, they can soon use FaceTime over the cell network, too, but only with certain data plans. On other plans, FaceTime wouldn't work. The restrictions apply only to FaceTime, however; Quinn even suggests that aggrieved users go out and download any other video chat app from the App Store—and they can run it on any data plan without problems.

The distinctions being drawn seem bizarre and arbitrary to many customers who argue that data is data—I paid for it and should control what I use it on, not AT&T. It's even stranger because AT&T isn't targeting "video chat" apps with its restriction; it is only targeting FaceTime.

What is going on here?

She canna handle the data, Captain!

Essentially, AT&T is counting on customer ignorance/laziness to save it from a data glut. The company knows that most cell phone users will favor the pre-installed apps, possibly adding a few more like Angry Birds, but largely not going out of their way to test and use other video chat apps (which generally require the people at the other end of the line to have the same app installed).

So the company can be generous when it comes to "downloaded" apps, but it fears that tearing down the wall around something like FaceTime would simply create too much data to handle. As Quinn finally admits near the end of the post, the decision is all about AT&T's "overriding concern for the impact this expansion may have on our network and the overall customer experience." Translation: we're afraid it would melt our network.

So much for the argument; the real question is, "Can this be legal?" The main thrust of Quinn's post was that it is legal because AT&T told people what it planned to do in advance. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in what was widely considered a weaker than weak-tea "open Internet" order in late 2010, did mandate transparency around network management—which is why AT&T had to announce the policy in the first place.

"Our policies regarding FaceTime will be fully transparent to all consumers, and no one has argued to the contrary," wrote Quinn. "There is no transparency issue here."

"Ah," protest the serfs, gathering around the baronial estate with pitchforks in hand, "but even under the open Internet order AT&T can't just block apps, right? This is an outrage!"

But the anger just serves to remind us how weak the rules are; blocking apps is indeed just fine... with one notable exception.

The rules

One of the ironies of FCC rulemaking is that, under Republican leadership generally hostile to the idea of legally enforced net neutrality, the FCC actually passed a 2005 "policy statement" (PDF) outlining four freedoms all Internet users could expect. Number three read:

To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

The principles were all subject to "reasonable network management," but it soon became clear that throttling or blocking particular apps didn't qualify as "reasonable." The FCC soon went after Comcast for BitTorrent interference and forced the company to change its ways (Comcast adopted a much improved system that focused on the heaviest local users at periods of actual, local congestion, rather than picking apps or protocols to burn at the stake.) Under this regime, which applied to wireless and wired networks, AT&T's current FaceTime monkey business would have violated the rules.

But Comcast sued the FCC over the issue and won, arguing that the policy statement had never been a set of "rules" and that the FCC wouldn't have the authority to make such rules anyway. So, under a Democratic FCC led by someone who promised to implement net neutrality rules, the agency adopted a strangely bifurcated order (PDF) that applied some of the same principles to wired networks—but gave wireless a huge pass (start reading at paragraph 93 for the wireless rules).

Although the FCC's final order said things like, "there is one Internet, which should remain open for consumers and innovators alike, although it may be accessed through different technologies and services," it actually let wireless operators do just about anything they liked, including blocking most apps.

The FCC did carve out one restriction on blocking apps, however: companies can't do so to squelch competition. Here's the official rule:

A person engaged in the provision of mobile broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block consumers from accessing lawful websites, subject to reasonable network management; nor shall such person block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable network management.

The FCC concerns behind the rule aren't theoretical; wireless operators like KPN, the incumbent telco in the Netherlands, have already blocked apps like WhatsApp (an instant messaging app) and Skype on the straightforward reasoning that these apps are bad for business by replacing texting and voice calls that might otherwise rack up separate fees. (The blocking was so egregious that the Netherlands passed the world's second net neutrality law in response.)

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, smiling as he ponders new ways to delight his customers.

AT&T

AT&T insists that FaceTime doesn't compete with its own services. As Quinn put it, "AT&T does not have a similar preloaded video chat app that competes with FaceTime or any other preloaded video chat application."

And at this point, suddenly, we have entered Lawyer Land, where the construction of sentences matters far more than everyone but your grade school grammar teacher (remember "diagramming"?) ever thought it would. The order prohibits AT&T from blocking apps that compete with its own "voice or video telephony services." AT&T wants to interpret this as saying it would only apply to an AT&T video app, but that's not what the rule actually says. One could certainly make the case that FaceTime in fact competes with even AT&T's basic voice chat service (Quinn wants to talk about "apps," which AT&T doesn't have, but the order is talking about "services").

Public Knowledge makes this exact argument: "Many people use apps like FaceTime, Skype, and ooVoo instead of making voice calls. In many respects these apps are more convenient than traditional calling. And by using these apps, consumers can save money on international calling charges, conference call services, and in other ways. There's no doubt that these apps are a competitive threat to AT&T's voice service."

Free Press is just as upset, writing, "Though it’s trying its best to hide it, the truth is that AT&T’s motivation here is to prop up its slowly declining voice and text revenue streams, which are expensive services that the open internet is making obsolete. If AT&T can weaken the FCC’s Net Neutrality protections at the same time, well that’s a bonus. The decision to block FaceTime likely will not be the last anti-consumer thing AT&T attempts as it tries to reassert its control over the communications ecosystem that the open Internet pried away long ago."

But what if AT&T isn't technically "blocking" anything at all?

"Blocking" vs. "exerting influence"

The language surrounding this entire issue is quite strange, with AT&T going on about how the FCC rules don't apply to "preloaded apps" (the order says nothing about preloaded apps). Apple and AT&T have in the past danced around the issue of exactly how the FaceTime restriction will be implemented—is AT&T going to block network traffic, or did it lean on Apple to make sure that traffic never even entered the network in the first place?

In the past, Apple coded its FaceTime app so as to work only over WiFi; that will now change with iOS 6. Sprint has already made clear that FaceTime will then be available to all users of its cell network, but AT&T wants to open the barn door only a crack. Perhaps it has leaned on Apple to build the barn-door-controller code into FaceTime itself, sparing AT&T the problem of trying to filter its network.

We're guessing that Apple has, in fact, gone along with this scheme, which is probably why AT&T keeps stressing that preloaded apps aren't required to do anything in particular. So long as AT&T or other carriers can convince Apple to alter its FaceTime code, the telco never actually has to get into the messy issue of identifying and blocking traffic in the first place. This helps explain what otherwise seems like an odd pair of sentences:

Although the rules don’t require it, some preloaded apps are available without charge on phones sold by AT&T, including FaceTime, but subject to some reasonable restrictions. To date, all of the preloaded video chat applications on the phones we sell, including FaceTime, have been limited to Wi-Fi.

The rules may forbid AT&T from blocking an app—but they don't require any specific app to use cell connections. So long as Apple made the change, AT&T seems to believe it's in the clear.

Either way, groups like Public Knowledge still see red.

"We don't know why Apple chose not to enable cellular FaceTime earlier," wrote John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney. "But now that every other US iPhone carrier besides AT&T will be offering cellular FaceTime on a nondiscriminatory basis, it is reasonable to assume that AT&T's demands were holding it back for everyone. No carrier should be able to dictate to Apple or any other handset manufacturer what features they may include on their phones."

Deep packet inspection vendors have longed pitched companies like AT&T on the virtues of per-app tolls and other restrictions. From a 2010 presentation by Allot.

Once again Aurich knocks it out of the park. Brilliant use of the Tall Man.

+1 and I loved that film !!! Got to meet Angus Scrimm once.Also adding that AT&T just tried to rip off my 88 year old Dad on his DSL Connection.He only uses AOL (of course) but I had to get on the phone and argue with their Company over why they overcharged his Bill.How much you want to bet that they will just do it again next month and every month unless I get on the phone and "straighten" it out for him ?

" Quinn pointed out that AT&T's serfs customers could continue to use FaceTime over WiFi."Aah, dude.That's very nice of you.So I'm allowed to use a service on a device that I bought on a different network that I'd also paid for?That's really generous of you.Thanks.

So maybe im not getting this, but didn't Apple have to allow this to happen in the first place? I mean without the code in the phone this would not be happening... Just use something else... There is no reason why Apple should have allowed this in the first place.

While AT&T's stance here truly is egregious (and to answer the title, no, they know not 'shame' for it is carefully filtered on their intranet), I think part of the fundamental problem in the industry is that resources aren't actually being priced clearly. Inefficiency and hidden charges thrive on opacity and layers of indirection, but at the same time it makes it hard to know for certain exactly what the state of the network is, how it needs to be improved, and thus where the lines are and who is telling the truth. Bandwidth and latency (linked to QoS) are the limiting factors on a network, and ideally we'd require that all plans explicitly spell out max bandwidth, min, 75th (or whatever is appropriate) percentile, average latency, and how much high priority bandwidth is included. Then just require that packets are packets.

Having that spelled out along with requiring no interference with data would benefit the consumer, but it doesn't have to be all bad for network operators either, and some consumers may have to face up to needing to pay more for more performance. Even as "dumb pipes" there should still be significant room for profit given the overwhelming barrier to entry, and to have a higher degree of customer satisfaction at the same time. At any rate, clarity in advertising would be a good, minimally intrusive first step for the government to take, just as ingredient labels are required for food. Free markets need a high degree of information symmetry, and while basic infrastructure isn't that great a match for the tool at least more information would help and seems politically feasible.

I was only with AT&T for the iPhone, and jumped ship to Sprint last year. AT&T's heavy handed anti-customer pricing and lobbying efforts are pretty much the main reason I left. The actual service isn't bad, but their corporate behavior is usually beyond the pale. And given how poorly behaved corporations are in general, it's saying something when your behavior is bad enough to make your company stand out.

That seals the deal. I'm moving to T-Mobile in Nov when my contract's up (and it'll actually be cheaper even though my work pays for all my data). Good riddance AT&T.

Hopefully this will become more common, I can't count the number of times I have heard someone bitch about AT&T and they have absolutely no answer as to why they don't cancel their service with them when their contract is up. Mind bottling.

The craziest thing about all this is that I don't see how restricting FaceTime to certain plans is even in AT&T's best interests. If AT&T allowed FaceTime over 3G on all plans, then everyone on a lower-tier plan (like myself) would be more likely to go over their limits and get hit with overage charges. Whereas with FaceTime restricted to a more expensive plan that I don't want, I won't switch plans and I won't use it at all.

Given their ridiculous overage fees, I would think they'd want to encourage more data use so you'd either blow past your limit or resign to upgrading to a higher-tier plan.

Maybe it's an attack on apples Facetime? I use skype on my lumia and I prefer it over facetime because I can access anyone much easier, and I don't need to own a apple product to do it. I don't agree with the decision, but maybe it's as political as it is greedy?

The first is to push more consumers over to the Mobile Shared Data plan, and the second is to establish a precedent that will put its Wi-Fi network on the same legal footing as its cellular one, especially when it comes to network neutrality.

Telco's have been able to do this for as long as I've worked in the industry. If they want to make a plan no longer allow long distance or some feature, all they have to do is notify the customers and give them X amount of time to switch plans, leave you, etc... per (state-specific) Public Utility Commission guidelines.

Granted, ATT's move here in the wireless arena is pretty bold, and comes across as a slap in the face, though. Wireless is not regulated as strictly as landline. ATT, et.al. are finding ways to push the boundaries of decency as much as they can while not pushing it enough to end up regulated.

The sad thing is, all you can do is leave them. If you don't like it, you'll need to stop rewarding them with your hard-earned cash.

Wow. What a great article. Words, pictures, the whole thing, a home run. And I'm not even an dissatisfied customer of ATT. They've never screwed up my bill or jerked me around on anything. The few times I've had to call Customer Service for something they've been pleasant and efficient. And I've been lucky enough to always get good service wherever I've lived.

...but despite all this happy sunshine™ between me and AT&T, I found this announcement infuriating. I don't even give a rat's ass about FaceTime; I barely use it. But today, it's FaceTime. What will it be tomorrow? The GoogleMusic streaming I make extensive use of? Those Netflix streams I watch sometimes? My NPR app? I don't believe for an instant this begins and ends with FaceTime alone.

I was only with AT&T for the iPhone, and jumped ship to Sprint last year. AT&T's heavy handed anti-customer pricing and lobbying efforts are pretty much the main reason I left. The actual service isn't bad, but their corporate behavior is usually beyond the pale. And given how poorly behaved corporations are in general, it's saying something when your behavior is bad enough to make your company stand out.

Yes they're treading a legal line pretty closely but I don't understand where the tone of moral outrage comes from. For example what is Anti-Consumer pricing? They charge X for something and you want to pay <X? There actually is competition here. Go to it if you hate ATT. And serfs? Do others here really consider ATT to hold that much power over them? If so that's pretty sad. I don't.

The craziest thing about all this is that I don't see how restricting FaceTime to certain plans is even in AT&T's best interests. If AT&T allowed FaceTime over 3G on all plans, then everyone on a lower-tier plan (like myself) would be more likely to go over their limits and get hit with overage charges. Whereas with FaceTime restricted to a more expensive plan that I don't want, I won't switch plans and I won't use it at all.

Given their ridiculous overage fees, I would think they'd want to encourage more data use so you'd either blow past your limit or resign to upgrading to a higher-tier plan.

I think part of it is that some people still have grandfathered unlimited 3G plans, and they want to get rid of those.

This will backfire. I say let the market decide. This presents the perfect opportunity for other carries to do the exact same opposite. I can see the tag lines already: "Sprint, because we don't care where you get your face-time on...." Consumers will soon realize what their are getting for their buck with AT&T.

Here's what AT&T should do. End grandfathered unlimited data, and let the people who don't want AT&T cancel their contracts and unlock their phones, free of charge. The people who decide to stay can then use whatever shitty data plans AT&T offers with FaceTime.

Obviously AT&T is doing everything it can to get people off their unlimited plans, so they need to just get it over with.

The FCC also needs to heavily, heavily regulate this industry and force them to lower prices and allow people to use their data as they see fit, as well as force them to charge $5 for unlimited texts, but that's a different story. In fact, I'd be happy to see the current telcos nationalized, the system standardized (all GSM), and then sell it to private companies who would compete on price, service and features.

This doesn't even effect me but it pisses me off. It is absolute bullshit. Are AT&T the only carrier who does this? I can imagine this sort of bulldick being introduced into Australia by our Telcos. They love to rim their customers.

I was only with AT&T for the iPhone, and jumped ship to Sprint last year. AT&T's heavy handed anti-customer pricing and lobbying efforts are pretty much the main reason I left. The actual service isn't bad, but their corporate behavior is usually beyond the pale. And given how poorly behaved corporations are in general, it's saying something when your behavior is bad enough to make your company stand out.

Yes they're treading a legal line pretty closely but I don't understand where the tone of moral outrage comes from. For example what is Anti-Consumer pricing? They charge X for something and you want to pay <X? There actually is competition here. Go to it if you hate ATT. And serfs? Do others here really consider ATT to hold that much power over them? If so that's pretty sad. I don't.

Not everyone has a choice due to location, or it's a false choice such as having another carrier in the area but that carrier's signal is weak where it matters. That's not really a choice, and that's the situation for many. I took a bit of a risk myself to get out from under Verizon, and while my signal isn't quite so good in quite so many places as Verizon, I'm pretty happy with half the bill at T-Mobile and my phone purchased outright and ready for another carrier if need be. Granted, that doesn't work if the manufacturer only bundles the phone with a carrier, so a person is pretty limited if they're fixated on one particular type of device. Anyway, my point is that your argument is theoretical and in many cases not indicative of real world experiences.

Say AT&T aren't a bunch of lying bastards. (I know... just bear with me.) and that unrestricted cellular Facetime would have a very negative impact on their data network's capacity. What are your options?

A) Allow it anyway, slowing EVERYONE'S data access to a crawl, when it even works at all

B) Disallow Facetime over cellular

C) Charge people more for Facetime over cellular, thus reducing its use. This assumes (justifiably so) that a fairly high percentage of people will not bother to go download apps such as Skype to replace Facetime.

D) Lower data caps per tier, charging more for the same amount of data as before (effectively (C) except in the spirit of "Data is Data")

So which do you choose? They all royally suck. AT&T chose (C). Can you come up with a better option?

Data may be data, but you also have to realize that if everyone with a 2GB cap actually USED 2GB per month, the whole system would be VERY overloaded. Just like home internet, the plans are oversold so that they are actually affordable if everyone shares and doesn't use their connection 100% wide open all the time.

Smartphones are rapidly moving from "wow it's amazing my phone can do all this" to "why am I paying 80 bucks a month to a company whose only concern is making it an even hundred?" Did you ever think with landlines that you'd pay a grand a year for your phone bill?

Apple may have built the kill switch into iOS 6, but AT&T's hand is still on the switch. AT&T is setting the "FaceTime=no" in their configuration file, so yes they are blocking it. It's the same thing they did with WiFi hotspot/tethering.